A typical known battery powered hand-held vacuum cleaner is described in EP-A-1070478. It comprises a generally conical nosepiece containing the air flow inlet at its tip and the dust collection module, a main housing portion behind the nosepiece containing the fan, motor and rechargeable battery pack, and an integrally moulded handle on its upper surface. The vacuum cleaner is typically wall mounted when not in use on a recharging mount so that the cleaner is perpetually in a state of high battery charge. The cleaner is hand-held and relatively small, and is typically used for collecting small amounts of dust or debris. Its small size and hand-held nature mean it is particularly useful for collecting dust or debris from raised or difficult to access locations. For normal floor use the operator must bend to place the cleaner in contact with the floor, and for floor cleaning use of an upright vacuum cleaner may be a more suitable choice.
Typically upright vacuum cleaners comprise a floor travelling head comprising an air inlet and a rotating brush which dislodges dust or debris, the brush usually being positioned in or close to the air inlet. In upright vacuum cleaners the functional components such as the motor, fan and dust collection modules are typically contained either in the floor travelling head, or in an upwardly extending main housing portion. Upright cleaners generally also comprise a handle connected to the floor travelling head or the main housing portion if present, the length of the handle being chosen to allow the operator to move the floor travelling head using the handle from a standing position.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,638 (BISSEL) discloses a conversion mechanism for a hand-held vacuum cleaner by plugging in a floor engaging head directly into the nozzle of the hand-held cleaner and further attaching an elongate stick handle directly to the handle of such hand-held vacuum cleaner to create an upright vacuum cleaner. However, in such a situation the elongate handle mounted in the cleaner directly creates a high concentration of stress within the handle of the vacuum cleaner, together with the high degree of stress between engagement of the vacuum cleaner with the floor engaging head. Thus a vacuum cleaner according to this prior art could be subject to damage if undue force is applied to the handle. Attempts to overcome the deficiency of the Bissel invention have been addressed by the Applicant's own product range by the launch of its System 3.TM. combined hand-held vacuum cleaner and caddy system during the mid 1990s. Such a system involved the use of a caddy with a pivotable floor engaging head for receiving the hand-held vacuum cleaner to convert the hand-held vacuum cleaner into a cleaner with a floor engaging head, and which caddy further accommodated an elongate cylindrical handle mounted within the caddy and which could be extended therefrom. However, the drawbacks of this system involved the necessity of a rather bulky caddy to accommodate the elongate handle when its fitted in a stored position, whereby even in the stored position a portion of the elongate handle remained projecting externally of the caddy thereby increasing the length of the unit which could result in the restriction of where such a unit could be used since the additional length of the projecting handle, even in the stored position, increased the overall length of the caddy mounted hand-held unit making it more bulky and difficult to use in restricted areas. The present invention now seeks to overcome the problems associated with these earlier vacuum cleaner systems.